The increasing demand for wireless telecommunication services has resulted in the growth of many wireless telecommunication systems and increase in the number of roaming wireless subscribers. With newer third generation (3G) systems, efforts have been implemented to accommodate and distribute the increased traffic load in the network among a number of mobile switching centers interconnected such that they constitute a mobile switching center pool (MSC pool). Such 3G networks offer advantages to both subscriber and network/service provider in the form of more efficient utilization of available network resources. Among the advantages realized by the use of the MSC pool include load sharing of network components and increased capacity and/or coverage in areas where the addition of an individual switching element would be cost prohibitive.
There are, however, known limitations and disadvantages of an MSC pool. One such limitation relates to the paging of a mobile station within the network. With second generation (2G) networks, a failure to receive a response from the mobile resulted in an increase of the paging area to a location area associated with the serving MSC. For 3G systems, however, location areas are not well defined meaning that the paging area can extend beyond the territory of a location area and to the entire area served by the MSC pool. This results from the difficulty of determining which MSC in the pool is serving a subscriber, or what MSC in the pool is serving a particular subscriber at any particular point. At the same time, it becomes impossible or highly impractical to globally page a mobile station within the entire service area served by the MSC pool.
Accordingly, a need exists for an improved method and means of paging a mobile station within a MSC pool service area.